


Warrior. Father. Stranger.

by MamaZoom



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Amnesia fic, Fuck you The Hound ain't dead, Gen, I don't even go here tbh, I don't know what I'm doing and neither does anyone else, Mainly angst, Some hurt/comfort, so here's this thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-04-06 19:49:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19069486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MamaZoom/pseuds/MamaZoom
Summary: Sandor "The Hound" Clegane has somehow managed to dodge death once more. Problem is, he has little recollection of where or even who he is. This is a chronicle of his journey back to himself and beyond.I'm terrible at summaries--Sandor is alive in this one, let's all rejoice.





	1. The Man Has No Name

**Author's Note:**

> Fic idea inspired by thereadersmuse on Tumblr. (https://thereadersmuse.tumblr.com/post/184872261543/guys-i-dont-make-the-rules-but-i-need-to-inform)
> 
> Yes. I know this is not how any type of amnesia works. This is not how real amnesia works. But dragons and blood magic aren’t real, either, so I’m giving myself some leeway. This is ~*magical post-near-death amnesia*~, yo. Get into it. 
> 
> I have no outline for this fic, be warned. I've been stress-writing this as I pack up for my out of state move later on in the month. Also, this is my first Thrones fic and I'm only familiar with the TV show, so be gentle with me. 
> 
> Lyrical quotes included because I am old school fandom trash and old habits are hard to shake. 
> 
> Chapters are mainly short because 1) I feel like it's a decent stylistic choice befitting how fragmented one might feel after massive trauma (both physical and emotional) and 2) it's all I have time for right now. 
> 
> Please leave a comment or kudos if you're enjoying--it's nice to know I'm not just screaming into the void over here.

_I feel numb_

_I feel numb in this kingdom_

[ _\--Numbers_ **Daughter** ](https://youtu.be/5U98FNTfyzg)

 

 

 

 _Fire_.

 

It’s the first image his mind was able to conjure when he came to.

A wall of fire coming at him.

With the image came more memories. The smell of singeing hair. The sickly sweet stench of burning flesh--an odor that made his stomach turn violently in on itself. And the falling, falling, falling.

The man groans, blinking blood out of his stinging eyes as he attempts to sit up. He’s surrounded by half crumbled buildings--the stones scorched, blackened. He is in a street, he realizes, and below him on the cobblestones, a pile of corpses.

Heaving himself to his feet, the man’s body begins to make several loud protests.  His shoulder is dislocated. He wonders for a brief moment how he knows that with such certainty. When would he have experienced a shoulder injury? He hasn’t enough time to consider it before a searing heat moves up his left leg as he shifts his weight. He takes a few careful steps and discovers he cannot walk without a limp.

His eyes are clouded, making it difficult to assess the finer details of his surroundings. He coughs twice, hacks up a globular of phlegm, and spits into a puddle of congealing blood. The bodies he had landed in appear to be fairly fresh. Maybe a day, give or take. It is too cool to tell. The man feels the cold, yet does not feel cold. _Do I hail from someplace cold?_ He thinks to himself. _Where am I?_

He ponders this for a moment. When was his last winter? Eight, perhaps ten years prior? Yes, he remembers. The cold was never a problem for him. He’d always been hot natured--the summer always being more of a hassle than winter for him. Uncomfortable even for a man who was capable of putting up with a lot.

So, he’s a hot natured man who doesn’t mind the cold. _It’s a start,_ he thinks.

Looking up, he finds a peculiar sight. There, pierced through by a spire, was the corpse of a large man. His body half charred. And while this was a sight to behold on its own, that was not what perplexed the man. He had seen his fair share of death-- _had I? Yes._ He had seen war. But this man on the spire--this monolith--appeared to have decayed at a much faster rate than the bodies on the ground.

What strange destruction had happened here? He wondered.

_I am a man who hates the heat and has seen war._

Reaching for his middle, he finds the empty sheath for a longsword. He continues to search himself and comes up with a warhammer and discovers he’s missing a dagger. Sighing to himself, he runs a grimy hand over his tired face before pulling back in shock.

What has happened to his face? Bringing his hand back up, his fingertips dance hesitantly across his right brow, his forehead. Had he been burned with the rest of these people? No. No. This is an old scar. Perhaps decades old. Maybe in a battle? He wonders how old he is.

Never mind. The corpses aren’t getting any fresher, and the night will be fast approaching. He may not know who he is, how he got to this burned out city, or much else, but he does know that he is hungry and needs to find shelter for the night.

Turning his back on the corpses once more, the man limps away.

  
  
He followed the coast the city sits upon until the bottom of the sun started to kiss the horizon. He felt as though he must’ve been the last man on earth--whatever survivors might still be alive obviously hiding. And he, limping down side roads and back alleys alone, half blind, his leather jerkin caked in dried blood. Then with the sun setting, he came across a great gate made of iron. Unable to move forward, he opted to turn and look further in the city for a place to spend the night. At dusk, he found a modest manse. The south wall was missing, but it would do for the night. He cleared the rubble off the bed with a sweep of a long arm and fell into a hungry and fitful sleep.

 

There were dreams that made no sense to him.

_Flames that danced with visions. An impossibly tall wall. A vast expanse of snowy land--a white void as far as the eye could see. A burning brazier. A confusing moment where he thought he’d woken up--a small figure with the sun to its back, its arms raised above its head. This too, was a dream, he realized--leaning up on an elbow awkwardly (was he in armor?) to get his face closer to the figure. A young, round face. Large, haunted blue eyes. Sad, like his--hadn’t someone told him he had sad eyes? And brown hair, like his but cropped shorter._

  
  
He wakes with a start, his skin clammy, and begins making a sleep addled list in his head.

_I am a man who likes the cold._

_I am possibly from the North._

_I might be a knight._

 

_I have a daughter._


	2. The King's Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sitting on the beach, waiting for his clothes to dry, he watches the ruined city. Something still smolders within its narrow corridors--weak tendrils of smoke still rising near the heart of the city, twisting in the wind coming off the ocean. Something truly terrible must’ve taken place here, he thinks. Something unimaginable.

_Please forgive me for my distance_  
The pain is evident in my existence  
Please forgive me for my distance  
The shame is manifest in my resistance

To Your Love ||  **Fiona Apple**

 

 

He rises before the sun and heads for the gate once more. By first light, he has found a weak point in the wall near a second gate, badly damaged by whatever hell ravaged the city. 

His limp has made the trek out to the sea a difficult and time consuming process, but as he strips his clothing off item by item to rinse it in the cool water, he deems it worth the trouble. His tunic, jerkin, and hood he all scrubbed at until the water around them clouded a reddish brown. His [braies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braies)\--almost completely untouched by blood, but still worse for the wear--he took off and scrubbed with damp sand, before shaking them out and sliding them back on. 

Sitting on the beach, waiting for his clothes to dry, he watches the ruined city. Something still smolders within its narrow corridors--weak tendrils of smoke still rising near the heart of the city, twisting in the wind coming off the ocean. Something truly terrible must’ve taken place here, he thinks. Something unimaginable.

What conflict had taken him here? So far from home? So far from his... _ family?  _ He tries to conjure up an image in his mind of his wife. Nothing comes. There is only a blank space. There were women, sure. He still has memories of spending nights in brothels just the same as he has memories of setting traps for rabbits and building bonfires. Of roasted chickens dripping juice, the taste of ale on his tongue, of ripping into a loaf of fresh, warm bread with hands and teeth.

Fuck, he is hungry.

He shakes his head, rising unsteadily to his feet to begin pulling on his damp clothes--tunic, then jerkin, then hood--and calls back through the sparse corridors of his memory, calling after his wife. There is nothing. Not even an echo. And he does not know if he has buried her in his memories, in the sands of time, or in the actual ground. 

And suddenly, a memory. Half formed in the light of a half moon. He was outside of a humble cottage, digging a hole. A grave. Perhaps that was it. She died. It must have been someone he cared greatly for, he determined. The memory of stumbling over a long forgotten prayer as he stood over the grave surfaces in his mind.

_ I had a wife. _

_ I’m not a religious man. _

There’s a road up ahead, and when the worn leather of his boot hits that long dirt path, the first substantial memory hits him. A thought so solid he knows it to be truth. This is The Kingsroad. And while this fact means nothing to the man he is now, just the mere thought that this was a path familiar to whomever he was before  is enough to lend some small comfort to him. 

_ I have traveled The Kingsroad many times. _

The snow has not reached this city. Does it ever snow here, he wonders. He searches his mind and finds he cannot remember. Is unsure if he ever knew.

Small, deserted inns and taverns line the mouth of the road. Many are nothing more than piles of ashen rubble. The few still more or less standing were his surest bets.

And so he begins searching. The first inn yields two stale loaves of bread, a hunk of hard cheese roughly the size of his large palm, and three apples. He would need to eat those first, as they are already beginning to whither in some spots. In the stock room he finds a horsehair sack, in which he deposits his new treasures.

The next inn he manages to procure four potatoes and two onions, as well as a small pot for cooking. He finds a plum and eats it in two bites as he continues his search. He comes upon a half empty wineskin of water—all of which he drinks before he is able to stop himself.

In a back room near a bed, he finds a mirror sitting on a small table. He expects to find some deeper insight in his reflection, but instead finds only more questions. He had assumed correctly before—the scars on his face were old. Perhaps over two decades, perhaps closer to three. The hard skin there appeared in thick, waxy cobwebs of scar tissue. The truly distressing thing, though, is the skin around his eyes. They are a purple so deep they were nearly black. The eyes the skin surrounded were terribly bloodshot. Perplexing, but it ultimately relieved him to realize his eyesight was not always so poor. 

He has a broad forehead, part of which his scar covers. One bushy brow above his left eye. His eyes themselves are a dark brown and yes, he can tell even through the injuries he’s sustained that they contain a sadness that seems painfully unshakable.

He searches for his daughter’s face in his own. She looks barely anything like him.  _ Must take after her mother.   _ Again, he is confronted with the absence of any memories or emotions surrounding his dead wife. Can’t even remember wrapping his cloak around her shoulders.    


His daughter, though. All he must do is think of her in passing and her face is there, clear in his mind. Round cheeks, small chin, a smear of dirt beneath her left eye. A great yearning wells up within him—a sickness set upon his heart, a tight squeezing in his chest. 

He reaches out, turning the mirror quickly over and walks hurriedly out of the room.

Snatching up his sack, he finds himself storming off, out of the inn and into the tavern. He marches past the overturned tables and stools—thrown wildly about in a panic no doubt—straight to the bar. A decanter of Dornish red awaits him on a low shelf and he takes it down in three large gulps, pulling it in easy as breath.

The wine he hates and suspects he always has—far too sour and spicy at once. But the alcohol—that was an overly familiar taste, an old friend, a constant companion, and he realizes as he wipes at his slick mouth with the back of his hand that some of the pounding in his head is starting to subside. He lets a shaky breath out.

_ I’m a drinker. Perhaps a drunkard. _

And into the sack is tossed three full skins of wine. The empty skin from the inn hangs from his belt, and he promises himself he’ll fill it with water as soon as he finds a stream. 

Sighing, he takes a look around him. The only living soul around. And yet he feels more or less fine. The frustration of not having anyone around to answer his questions had passed through him a few times since he came to, but whenever he dwelled in that for too long, he found himself recoiling from the thought of going out of his way to talk to anyone.

_ So I’m a bit of a loner, eh? _

He wonders briefly what his woman must’ve thought of that. If she enjoyed the strong silent type, or if his solitude vexed her. Women, from what he knew of them, became crazed over certain things.

 

 

 

He walks a good hour along the road, only leaves it for a few moments at a time to tear a fistful of clover or wild parsley from the soil—though this does nothing to fill his stomach. He would have some bread and cheese tonight before sheltering. Until then, he would need to ration food. 

He could, of course, set a trap for a rabbit. He didn’t have a bow for hunting, nor was he sure he knew how to use one. But that would have to wait. He is unsure of how far from home he is, and it is a journey he’ll have to take on foot as well. Best to keep moving until something forced him to stop. He would not, he decides, start to take his time on this journey until he saw snow begin to thickly cover the earth. Only then would he allow himself to slow down.

The knowledge his daughter--still nameless to his addled mind--is waiting for him somewhere, possibly in danger if there’s a war still on, spurs him on, feet ever moving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo girl had to research Medieval underwear for this one. About to pour one out for my Ye Olde Anglo ancestors and their uncomfortable between-me-down-theres because Jesus Christ that shit looked awful. 
> 
> I have two more chapters ready to post at a moment's notice, though I suspect I might hold back on posting them until I write more for this. I'm not on any sort of posting schedule. Who knows.


	3. Waiting

_If you're still alive_  
_My regrets are few_  
_If my life is mine_  
_What shouldn't I do?_

_**_

_Hard to be soft_  
_Tough to be tender_  
  


_Help I'm Alive_ || **Metric**

 

 

 

A raven had arrived that morning with news stale as old ale and twice as bitter. Jon’s circumstances had not changed at all, still kept captive by the army of a dead woman. While there was no reason to doubt he was still being kept alive, there was also no guarantee they haven’t already killed him. 

Arya sighs, stretches her arms above her head, and begins her trek to the Godswood. A daily occurrence, since her family’s return to Winterfell. It had become a part of her loose routine now. Once, sometimes twice a day, she would go down to the Weirwood tree, under which sat Bran. He would tell her the news, if there were any. 

It wasn’t a terribly long walk, and she walked slowly in an attempt to remedy that fact. While the last year—indeed, just the last battle alone—had changed her in some queer, ineffable ways, it was difficult to let old habits die off. Solitude, over the course of her young life, had become a sort of balm for any of her aches. 

And she had awoken aching in the bone pale light of predawn that morning. More than just her battle sore body, that empty space inside of her had grown like a weed—spreading like fire, pouring over like a flood. Grateful, ever grateful, for what she had left. And so, so bitter for what had been taken. 

There had been dreams the night before. Of things that had not happened, and hopefully never would. The blade of a broadsword swinging on a rapid descent towed the nape of Jon’s neck. And of the things that regretfully did. The ashen bodies of the mother and young girl she tried desperately to save. The weight of a brown eyed gaze, heftier and twice as gentle as the hand cradling the back of her head. 

She was alive with a restlessness she felt picking at the seams of her flesh—ready to burst open like something putrid, overripe. 

And so she woke aching like a rotting tooth, dressing hurriedly in the near dark. She walked the halls stacked floor to ceiling with memories—wall to wall with ghosts. And the worst of it all was how inescapable it all was. She had become a girl so in love with death she had become it. The hole inside her a grave she kept piling the bodies in—their ghosts just as restless as she was, rattling her bones so hard if she stood still long enough she could feel herself shaking from the inside out— _ You want to be like me?  _

Her stride broke with a stutter only momentarily. A slow breath in the through the nose, she steeled herself like a blade—hard, sharp, unbending—and carried on her course. 

She would keep moving forward. 

She would seek Bran’s council. 

 

And she would keep moving forward. 


	4. Fragment 1

__So we lay in the dark,  
We've got nothing to say  
Just the beating of hearts,  
Like two drums in the grey  
I don't know what we're doing  
I don't know what we've done  
But the fire is coming  
So I think we should run.

**** __ Run ||  **Daughter**

 

 

_ They’re sleeping in the woods, a few feet off the trail. The Kingsroad, he’s fairly certain. The fire has burned down to embers, casting only the faintest light, just a bit of warmth between them.  _

_ She’s a vague shape in the dark, her back turned to him in slumber.  _

_ He’s gazing up at the stars peeking down at him through the treetops, their branches spearing the sky.  _

_ Their journey had been long and tedious. She had her own horse now, but her slick mouth had not stopped gnashing away at him—his ear, his ego, his brain, his defenses. Privately, he found her vicious wit as endearing as annoying. He’s told her to shut up more times than he could count at this point.  _

_ The days, though long and arduous, are ultimately easier. Always something to do, even if it’s just keeping their steeds on course. The nights, though, are difficult. Too quiet. If circumstances were different, he would do as he’s always done—drink the thoughts quiet enough to pass out. But they still had a way to go, and so he had taken to rationing his wine.  _

_ So in the nights, with scant wine and her by his side, he was left with a skull full of his own thoughts, louder than swords clashing in battle. And outside of him, the gulf of pain that surrounds her. The air around her was heavier than his armor, and so so vast it almost made it difficult to breathe deeply. As though he could feel her thoughts, even if he couldn’t hear them.  _

_ Not that he much needed to.  _

_ He nearly told her about his brother, his face. He couldn’t remember now what had triggered that impulse. She’d been blathering on about something, and he nearly spilled his story like a cup of wine knocked cross a table.  _

_ That, he supposed, was the danger of spending time with another person. She’d been living so in his pocket for such a time that he’d begun to notice himself viewing her as not an annoying child, but as an extension of himself.  _

_ Some days his existence would stumble into her’s like a blind man tumbling headlong into a lake. And yet some days they moved effortlessly around one another. As though she had always been with him—his nose, his arm, his dagger, rarely reached for yet always at his side.  _

_ And so, when he had heard her crying quietly in her sleep the night before, it tugged at something in his chest. An old hurt rising up from the tumultuous depths like a kraken breaching waves.  _

_ She is older than he was when he first lost someone close to him. Hell, he barely remembered her even now. What’s freshest is the pain, has felt her absence like an amputee’s limb from that first moment til this one. His first clearest memory is the fire. The second is Eleanor. Only two years younger than him. A girl stuck forever in time. His mother’s wailing and after, his mother’s quiet. For years. Gregor made two ghosts that day.  _

_ He understands what she is feeling. When a loss is so fresh everything in you feels empty and raw.  _

_ When the night is so quiet and he’s on the edge of sleep, his mind drifts away from him and he can’t help but wonder what it is she needs now. He thinks about what he himself needed, all those years ago. Vengeance was what he arrived to in later years. It was the thing that seemed most obtainable after all those years of dissatisfaction. But what came before? An old,restless soul craves vengeance. What does a young, frightened heart want, though?  _

_ He thinks back to that child he was before. A gentle embrace and the soothing murmur of  _ you’re safe, you’re safe, you’re safe. 

_ It’s a thought that crosses his near sleeping mind for only a moment, before deciding he isn’t the one who can give that to her.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter I wrote before my move. Now that I'm settling in, we'll see how much I keep on top of this. 
> 
> At any rate, I liked the idea I had of Sandor gaining more insight into his past and memories there of through highly fragmented dreams. I'm sure there will be more chapters like this in the future--he's got quite a ways to go before he reaches the North. I have loose plans for how this is gonna shake out/what he'll remember and what he won't by the time he reaches Winterfell. So strap in, y'all!


End file.
